


And Then This Happened...

by MaryAnne615



Category: Casino Royale (2006), James Bond (Craig movies), Quantum of Solace (2008), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall - Fandom
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-13 13:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5709412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryAnne615/pseuds/MaryAnne615
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my collection of James Bond / M stories based upon the continuation of scenes we have seen in the Daniel Craig Bond movies.  You'll know what scenes they are easy enough!  Because I feel that more always happens but we never get to see what happens to the characters when the scene changes.</p><p>Please note that each chapter is independent...they don't follow in sequence and the characters could change from chapter to chapter, based upon what story I want to tell.  So, if M has 2 children in one chapter, and 3 in the next, don't be confused!  The main characters, including M's husband, will remain the same, but the relationship dynamics could change!  </p><p>Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Is That Stress I Hear In Your Voice?

“Is that stress I hear in your voice?”

‘Damn him,’ she cursed in her mind, her own internal voice starting a headache. Damn him for taunting her and getting under her skin. Of course there was stress in her voice. Bond had not only killed someone after she’d specifically told him not to kill anyone else, but the man had been from Special Branch. An operative so deeply embedded in the organization that even she didn’t know he was there. 

Until now. Now she knew. As did the Home Secretary and, more than likely, the Prime Minister.

She berated Bond, told him to come in, all the while trying to take her make-up off and finish her evening’s original intent of a hot bath, a glass of wine, a worthless novel, and a soft bed. 

“Not until I find the man who tried to kill you,” Bond said, his voice now clearly full of stress.

Bond hung up, but M didn’t disconnect the open line with MI6 headquarters. She knew Tanner was still listening. Tanner was always listening in when Bond called in from the field. Tanner knew all her secrets, more than even Mitchell knew. Tanner knew everything. Silently she hoped her chief of staff never turned. It would pain her to have him killed.

Knowing Tanner couldn’t see her, she continued to wipe the cold cream off of her face while she instructed him to curtail Bond’s movements and stop his credit cards. She needed him back, not only to answer her questions, but to help her answer the questions she knew would be coming at her once the Home Secretary decided to call her in.

But right now all she wanted to do was turn the taps back on, finish filling the tub, take off her bathrobe and chemise, and sink into the hot water up to her earlobes. Perhaps she’d add some oil. Or bubble bath. Something that smelled good.

“Somebody tried to kill you?”

The strong voice was behind her. 

Emmett, her husband of 46 years. How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard?

Years ago she had stopped hiding her phone calls, even the ones on video or speaker, from her husband. He had almost as high of a security clearance as she did and frankly, she didn’t even think he listened to her conversations with MI6 anymore. Just tuned them out like white noise.

“Yes, but obviously he didn’t succeed,” she said, moving toward him, then changed her mind and stopped. 

She knew that Emmett wasn’t going to let this go. If she could only explain.

He watched at her as she moved toward him and then changed her mind. Emmett knew her job was dangerous, that she’d been in danger before. But whatever had happened in the most recent event had riled up an agent to the extent he was now out looking for revenge and was willing to disobey her orders to do so. It must have been bad. 

M really didn’t want to have this conversation with her husband, not when Bond was out there causing problems. There was no doubt her phone would be ringing in a short while. She stood by the bath and unwrapped the sash of her bathrobe, letting it slide off of her shoulders onto the floor.

Yes, she would distract him by undressing and getting into the bathtub. Perhaps a hot bath, a massage, or a blowjob would distract him. Or it might take all three. Her husband loved sex, as did she. Whatever it took, she would gladly do.

“Keep your clothes on, Olivia. I want to know more about this, please,” he said, turning and leaving the bathroom. He expected her to follow. 

And she did. 

She grabbed her bathrobe, put it back on then took one long look at the half-filled bathtub, the water already cooling. After a deep sigh, she joined her husband downstairs in the living room.

He had already poured them each a whiskey. He handed her the crystal glass as she entered the room.

“Emmett…” her voice trailed off as she tried to find a way to explain to him what happened without making him angry. 

Not because of the attempt on her life, but because of who had been the one to pull the trigger.

“It was Mitchell, wasn’t it?” he said, almost as if he were reading her mind. 

Her head shot up. How did he know? 

Emmett sat on the couch then motioned for her to join him. She knew her husband well enough to know that his calm demeanor meant nothing. Inside he was raging, and the forced calm was just him keeping his emotions intact.

“I’m guessing Mitchell because whatever happened probably happened recently. And Mitchell has disappeared.”

“Recently,” he added as she sat down next to him.

She didn’t answer him. She didn’t have to. Her husband was a smart man. 

“Your silence answers my question,” he said softly. Then he stood up, turned away from her and threw his crystal glass at the fireplace. The glass hit the marble with a thud, the sound of the shattering glass almost musical, relaxing, like the spa music that played when they treated themselves to a couple’s massage.

She stood up quickly, partly in surprise, partly because she didn’t want him to grab her glass and throw it as well.

He turned back toward her, his anger dissipated somewhat by the release of pent-up energy from throwing the glass. He had thrown it hard enough to scratch the marble. 

“Apparently he was a mole. Part of an organization we now recognize as ‘Quantum’. I don’t have all the details yet. When he turned, who turned him, but I have my best agents…”

“When?” Emmett interrupted her, something he rarely did.

“A few weeks ago. We were in Sienna, Italy, questioning a suspect that we captured as part of…” 

She stopped, wondering how much to tell him, decided he didn’t need the minute details. Just the big ones.

“Anyway, my agent brought the suspect to a cellar in Italy. He’d been shot, was bleeding. We had him hooked up to an IV.”

She looked at him, still wondering how much detail she should give about the actual shooting. His eyes spoke clearly: everything. 

“We were interrogating him. Myself and two agents. Mitchell was standing to one side. The suspect was being a real twat, mocking us and the CIA for not knowing what the organization was and who and where they were. One thing led to another and before I knew what was happening, Mitchell pulled a gun and…”

Her voice trailed off. For the first time since the shooting, she was actually realizing how deep Mitchell’s treason was hurting her. Mitchell, her personal body guard, whom she’d actually liked. Mitchell, who spent time around her husband, her children. Her grandchildren. Had betrayed her. For the first time since that day, she let her body become overwhelmed with the fact that someone she had trusted with her personal life, her family, had turned out to be nothing more than a common street thug. She closed her eyes to keep control of her emotions.

What had turned him? Money? Some deep-seated anger at her for something? Her Christmas presents? More than likely she would never know.

“Olivia..?”

His voice brought her back from her thoughts. She continued.

“He killed one of my agents. Shot him in the heart at point blank range. He fired at me but…the IV pole deflected the bullet. Ironic, since Mitchell was the one who suggested the IV. Then he ran. But Bond…my other agent…chased him and…” her voice caught. She hoped that Mitchell had died violently and painfully. She had never read Bond’s follow-up report. She only knew that he had killed Mitchell. That’s all she needed to know.

Suddenly she was being shaken. She had never even seen Emmett crossing the floor and reaching for her. He had his hands on her upper arms, grasping hard and shaking her.

“Dammit, Olivia, that man was in our house! We left him alone with our children. Our grandchildren!”

She said nothing as he shook her harder. Not enough to hurt her. She knew he would never hurt her. Not only because he loved her but because the best agents in Her Majesty’s Secret Service would rip him to shreds if he did. 

“I know, Emmett, I know,” she whimpered. 

He finally released her. 

Suddenly the thought of sinking into the hot bath came back into her mind. She was tired and just wanted to get into the hot water and enjoy the calm before the Home Secretary’s storm. 

“I know, Emmett, I know,” she repeated. “I don’t know what to say. He fooled me. He fooled all of us.”

She hung her head in shame. The head of MI6, the country’s top spy, had been stalked for years in the most intimate of fashions by a traitor. And she had never seen it coming, never suspected a thing. Not even in the final minutes. Only when he pointed his gun at her did she realize who and what Mitchell was.

Damn him. 

Then she felt his arms around her again, this time in a soft, loving embrace. He pulled her body against his, her head resting at the level of his heart. She could hear his heart racing in anger, but could also tell that he was calming a bit. The frantic beats were slowing, just a bit.

“I know, darling. I’m sorry. I just…”

“Don’t apologize, Emmett. You have every right to be angry. I gave him access to you, to everyone.”

He pulled her close and started snuggling in her hair. She wrapped her arms around her body, enjoying his warmth and musky smell from playing golf in the sun all day. For several minutes they stood like this, holding each other. Something they didn’t do enough, thought M.

“So, when were you going to tell me?” he said, releasing her body but keeping his hands on her shoulders.

M thought for a moment. Would she have voluntarily told him? Or just waited for him to ask about Mitchell? He’d asked about others who had been near the family and then moved on to other positions. And Mitchell had played golf so the two men had had a few conversations about the game. 

“I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t have. You would never have known if you hadn’t overheard the conversation in the bathroom.”

“That was Bond, right? On the phone? The one who killed Mitchell?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m glad that you told me tonight, even if I had to drag it out of you.”

She looked up into the eyes of her husband. Her partner, her best friend, her lover. And smiled devilishly.

“I was going to give you a blowjob to distract you from this,” she said, smiling at him. 

He snickered. She had used this tactic before when he had started asking questions. He always knew he was getting close to something he shouldn’t when she started taking off her clothes. Or his. On more than one occasion he had started asking questions not to glean information but to just get a blow job. His wife was very good on her knees.

“Well, I do have a few more questions…” he said quietly. 

“Of course,” she replied, falling to her knees and unbuckling his belt.


	2. I F*cked This Up, Didn't I?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This particular scenario leads into one of Skyfall's scenes. 
> 
> M tries to explain to Kincade who she is, why she's being hunted. But the words just don't seem to feel right.

M woke with a start, buried under a layer of blankets in a room that was barely lit, even though the windows were uncovered and it was still daylight outside. She was in a small room, lying on a bed with a mattress that was hard as a rock.

Where was she?

She started to move and realized that she was fully clothed, wearing the same tights, skirt, blouse, and jacket that she had worn at the hearing earlier that day. 

Or was that yesterday?

She wasn’t sure how long ago she had been sitting before the panel of Ministers, shamelessly quoting Tennyson, before Silva...

Skyfall. 

She was at Skyfall, James Bond’s ancestral home in Scotland. It was all coming back to her now. The shootout at the hearing, Gareth Mallory more than likely saving her life by pulling her backwards and taking the shot intended for her. She wondered how he was doing. 

Bond kidnapping her, then bringing her to Skyfall in his classic Aston Martin DB5. While she appreciated the beauty of the classic vehicle, she hadn’t appreciated how uncomfortable of a ride it was.

Much like her own tired and twisted body, she supposed. A classic but worn out and not very smooth.

Slowly she stretched out her body, enjoying the warmth from the blankets. Her face was cold so she knew the rest of the room would be cold. As her bare feet touched the stone floor she looked around for the heavy boots that Kincade had brought her. Thankfully she had left them right by the bed so there would be no steps on the cold floor. She put them on, stood up, and went for the room’s door.

Silently she crept down the stairs, not sure where Bond and Kincade were. Then she could hear their voices wafting upstairs. 

“...seriously, James, you going to tell me who she is?”

Kincade. With Bond and questioning who she was and what she was doing there.

“I’ll explain later, Kincade, I promise. Right now I have to make sure she’s safe. I need to find an early warning system...”

“The dogs will warn us of anyone coming onto the property, no matter which direction they come from,” Kincade countered, edginess in his voice.

M continued down the stairs, as silent as she could. She was a spymaster, excelling at sneaking up on people, even Double Ohs.

“Is she your lover?” Kincade asked, although M could hear the doubt in his voice. He was baiting Bond, trying to get him to answer his other question by vehemently denying this one. 

“No, far from it.”

M almost smiled at Bond’s answer, not falling into Kincade’s trap. But she also knew that Kincade wasn’t going to give up. And frankly, he deserved an answer.

“But she is someone I care for deeply. And I will do anything it takes to keep her alive,” Bond’s voice came up the stairs. From the left. They were in the living room. 

M moved silently across the dining room, through the kitchen and into the living room. She was in the shadows, unseen by both men. Kincade was sitting on a large wooden box while Bond was sitting on the couch, absentmindedly cleaning the knife that Kincade had given him. 

A knife. To fight a man who had destroyed half of MI6 with technology and know-how. 

“James, please. I think I deserve to know what you are doing here. And who she is. She’s obviously someone very smart. But...” his voice slowed down and he paused, “...she’s running scared. And so are you,” Kincade said. 

Finally M stepped out of the shadows.

“Perhaps it is best that you don’t know who I am, Mr. Kincade,” she said matter-of-factly. Although she knew that it was time that the old gamekeeper knew what was happening. He needed to know the rules of the game.

Both men were startled at her voice and stood up. 

“All due respect, Emma, but I want to know...” Kincade started

“I know, Mr. Kincade, and you shall know,” she said, holding up her hand to silence him. 

M sat down on the couch next to the small 9mm pistol that would be her defense against Silva. Not much better than the knife, but it was what she could handle. 

She looked at Mr. Kincade and motioned with her head for him to sit down. He complied.

“First, my name is ‘M’. Not ‘Emma’. Just the letter ‘M’,” she said quietly. 

Kincade looked confused. Who uses a letter for a name?

“Well, truthfully, it’s a code name. You see, in my line of work it pays to be anonymous,” she said. “Although, when the one hunting you knows who you really are I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

She snorted at her own words, realizing that for 12 years she had utilized a code name to hide her identity from those who would cause her harm. But there were those out there who knew her before she inherited the code name, before she became Britain’s spymaster. And one of them was going to kill her. She knew that. She was going to die here at Skyfall. She only hoped that the two men trying to protect her would get out alive.

“I don’t understand,” Kincade said. His voice held a tinge of exasperation.

She took a deep breath and started talking, telling him everything. Who she was, who Bond was, why she used a code name, what they were doing at Skyfall. She told him all about Silva, filling in some blanks for Bond to help him understand all there was to know about Silva. 

She watched Kincade turn white as she revealed how she had given Silva, then known as Tiago Rodriguez, up to the Chinese, knowing that they would torture him and most likely kill him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bond look away.

More than once she had given Bond up, too, so to speak. 

‘Take the bloody shot’. It was unspoken words between them as she told Kincade the rest of the story.

“And that is all there is,” she said. She sat back on the couch, the 9mm still in her hand. She couldn’t explain it, but the weight of the heavy piece of metal in her hand made her feel a little bit safer.

Kincade looked at her long and hard, then directed his gaze at Bond. He didn’t know what to think. Part of him wanted to laugh out loud at the preposterous story she had just told him.

This tiny woman the head of MI6? While he sensed she was smart and successful, he still couldn’t believe that she was the top spy in the UK. 

And Bond. A highly trained operative within the SIS? A killer? 

He thought back to earlier that morning, when he had watched Bond easily hit small targets with his father’s hunting rifle. Bond hadn’t even seemed to be trying. He had just pointed the shotgun and pulled the trigger. 

Maybe it was true, he didn’t know. It’s not like he could Google her and find out if she was lying or not. 

“Well, okay then, what’s next?” he finally said. ‘It’s my job now, too, to protect you’ he added in his mind. 

Even though part of him didn’t believe her, he also knew he really didn’t have a choice but to go along with events as they unfolded.

He quietly left the area, taking up position in the window on the far side of the living room.

Bond was in the main window, holding his father’s hunting rifle and occasionally looking out the window. M was sitting on the couch, slumped over her knees, the 9mm pistol in her hands.

The events of the past several months were running through her head. From the stolen hard drive to Bond’s death and the shootout at the hearing. How many were dead? She’d lost count. So much had gone wrong since Silva had surfaced, first through Patrice in Turkey, then through the gas lines at MI6 headquarters, and then finally through the fake police uniforms at the hearing. 

All because of her. All because of a decision she had made just a mere 14 years ago. Some voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that she should have seen this coming. She should have known that, if he were still alive, Tiago Rodriguez would strike back at her. She should have tracked him, should have been aware of whether or not the Chinese had killed him or if he was somehow free from them. She should have known watching her office explode, killing her trusted personal assistant Valerie and 7 others, that this was the work of Rodriguez. She should have pieced it all together before it came to just the 3 of them, defending against a madman, with nothing more than a knife, a few guns, and a few sticks of dynamite.

She sighed, knowing that when it counted the most, she had failed.

“I fucked this up, didn’t I?”


	3. He's My Agent and I Trust Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Quantum of Solace entry...from Tanner's perspective.

Bill Tanner was approaching his boss, his mind trying to understand how Bond had gotten away from four heavily-armed and highly-trained SIS agents in a cramped elevator while handcuffed. Tanner had seriously underestimated the power and intelligence of Double-Oh Seven.

And so had M. Once again he had gotten away from her. Gotten away from her trying to bring him down, or in. 

Even getting to Bolivia meant Bond had slinked back to Rene Mathis to get forged paperwork after M had stopped his credit cards and put alerts on his passports. She had been furious when she found out that Bond had defied her orders to come into MI6 and instead had traveled to South America. Her rage had gone off the rails when the call came that Mathis and two police officers were dead and the Bolivian police said Bond was responsible. 

“Find out where he’s going. He’s on to something,” she instructed, barely even stopping to speak the words.

But Tanner wasn’t having any of that.

“Ma’am, the CIA insists...”

“I don’t give a shit about the CIA and their trumped up charges,” she said emphatically before stopping in front of him and looking him straight in the eye.

“He’s my agent and I trust him,” she said, evenly. And he believed her. He always believed her.

“Go on...” she instructed, tossing her head towards the staircase Bond had disappeared into. Tanner took off, but he knew that following Bond in that direction would be fruitless. The man was like a cat. He could be anywhere by now. 

But before Tanner could go much farther the phone in his pocket buzzed. He pulled it out, looked at it and frowned.

Ian Smithson, the director of the CIA. Tanner had already spoken directly to the director twice that day about Greene, Bond, and the direction M was taking with this whole thing. Smithson was mortified...no...incensed...that M had gotten on a plane and was in Bolivia. He was even more furious that she was fighting him on the ‘Capture or Kill’ order on Bond that he had personally signed and sent to M. Tanner wondered if he somehow already knew that Bond had managed to escape.

He hesitated for a moment then decided to take the call. If he didn’t answer then Smithson would just go through a whole list of others trying to reach her and Tanner wanted to spare those other innocent employees the wrath of M’s counterpart at the CIA. 

“Yes, sir?” 

Tanner tried to sound as calm and normal as possible. Hard to do since he was out of breath.

“Tanner, where the fuck is she? Where the fuck is Bond? What the fuck is going on there?”

Smithson had run all three questions together so quickly that Tanner’s brain was still trying to figure out the answer to the first one while Smithson continued with his tirade.

“Beam tells me he stole an airplane and has taken a woman hostage and they were out in the desert somewhere. You guys are pursuing an empty lead and I am warning you...”

“Sir, if you please, I’ll let you speak with M. I’ll call you back,” Tanner said as politely as he could before disconnecting the call. He had worked with M long enough to recognize that both she and Smithson were cut from the same cloth when in a blind rage: impossible to reason with. While he had to let her rant and rave until she was tired, he didn’t work for Smithson and didn’t have to listen to him. And hanging up was the only way he was going to get a word in edgewise, even if it was metaphorically.

The problem was, his own boss was reaching the ‘blind rage’ stage and might not be any more open to reason.

He turned and went into Bond’s hotel room and found M looking at Strawberry Fields’ body, still lying on the bed and drenched in oil. He was about to break into her thoughts when his phone rang again. 

He knew without looking that it was Smithson. 

“Ma’am, CIA Director Smithson is looking for you. He’s a bit angry,” he said, taking the phone out of his pocket. But he didn’t answer it.

She turned to look at him and Tanner realized he might have misjudged her. She didn’t seem angry at all. In fact, she looked calm, almost as if they were having a casual conversation over her favorite lunch of fish, chips and a cold beer. 

She extended her hand out to him. Reluctantly he opened the call and handed her the phone. He could already hear Smithson’s voice vehemently asking questions, most of them starting with the word ‘fuck’.

She put the phone to her ear and listened for a moment. Tanner turned to give her some privacy but stayed close enough to be there if she needed anything. And, of course, to hear what she was saying to him.

“Hello, Ian. How are you?” Tanner was shocked at how calm her voice was. Almost serene.

She paused as she listened to Smithson.

“No, sadly, he got away. Not sure how. But, then again, he is one of my most-skilled agents now, isn’t he? Escaping is his job, right?” 

The ice cream smoothness of her voice made Tanner turn and openly gape at his boss. She was almost purring, if he could say such a thing about the head of the SIS.

“What’s that? You want to reaffirm the ‘Capture or Kill’ order on Bond? Perhaps you can also reaffirm why, exactly, you did such a thing?” Tanner watched as she moved to the middle of the hotel room and sat down on the couch, absentmindedly smoothing out her white jacket. 

Now Tanner was intrigued. In his years of working for her, first as the night manager then replacing Villiers as her Chief of Staff, he had learned so much from her. Now he felt he was learning something entirely new. Perhaps the most important thing he would ever learn.

How to spy on the spies.

“But Ian, I was told that CIA had no interest in Greene or Greene Planet. Why the anger at our actions to find him?”

She had no emotion on her face as she listened to him try to answer her questions. 

“So, perhaps you can explain to me how come your own chief of station, Mr. Gregory Beam himself, told me personally that there was no interest in Mr. Greene while actually sitting with the man on a private jet going from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to Bregenz, Austria?”

For the first time since he had answered the phone Tanner heard nothing on the line from Smithson.

That was it...her trump card. She was calling his bluff and letting him know that she knew the CIA man, Beam, was rotten. Perhaps even the director himself. Tanner only hoped Leiter wasn’t in on the ruse. He liked the man and knew Bond liked him as well. He had helped Bond...and MI6...bring down Le Chiffre in Montenegro. If Leiter hadn’t given Bond his chips to stay in the game, Le Chiffre would have gotten away, possible with enough money to satisfy the creditors that he had double-crossed.

Tanner know understood why Smithson was so angry at her for flying to Bolivia. At first he thought it might have been some concern for her safety in the unstable third-world country. Now he knew it was because the Director and CIA were hiding a whole operation from her, an operation she was now right in the middle of, and he hadn’t moved fast enough to stop her or get there before she arrived. 

“Really, Ian? You’re going to deny this?” 

She paused, letting her words sink in. 

Then Tanner realized how Bond had gotten away.

She had let him. 

In fact, she had aided and abetted him. He mentally went through the list of the four men in the elevator: Jackson, Egan, Garvey, and Henderson.

Yes, heavily-armed and highly-trained men, but seriously inexperienced. And not really trained in dealing with the few in MI6 with a license to kill. She had purposely picked four men lacking in the skills to expect such actions from their own, much less react appropriately.

She really did trust her agent. And was willing to piss off her friend, the director of the largest and most powerful spy agency on the planet, to prove it.

He smiled.

She looked up at him and returned his smile, knowing that he had figured out what she was really up to.

She focused back on the phone conversation, now with an edge in her voice. The ice cream was gone. 

“You lied to me, Ian. You were overseeing an operation that included British interests but didn’t tell me or bring my agents in. Then when we caught on, you lied to me again and then put out a ‘Capture or Kill’ order on Bond.”

For a split second Tanner thought he heard a tinge of hurt in her voice. M wasn’t one to play the part of crying female to get what she wanted so he believed that Smithson’s actions had actually caused her some emotional pain. He knew they were friends, had come up through the ranks of their respective spy agencies at the same time and spent time together both professionally and privately. He knew that M’s husband played golf with him whenever he had a chance. 

But M wasn’t finished.

“You see, Ian, we can play dirty as well. And while Bond is a player with the ladies, I have other agents who are just as good at making unsuspecting women talk. You’d be surprised what a skilled agent can get out of a private flight attendant when his tongue is between her legs yet he can still ask the right questions to get the right answers. Would you like me to tell you what whiskey Ms. Branson served on the flight?”

Her words caught Tanner by surprise. While he had heard some fairly vulgar words come out of her mouth before, it had never been with anyone outside of MI6 and certainly not with the director of CIA or any other spy agency.

She jerked her head away from the phone and then looked back at the little screen, frowning.

“Hmm. He hung up. I wonder why?” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

She stood up and took a step toward him.

“Ma’am, I...” Tanner started to say, totally unsure whether to laugh, cry, or give her a hug. 

“Tanner, find out where he went,” she said softly, restating her original order to him before the phone call. She handed him back the phone. 

“I don’t think you have to worry about Smithson calling you anytime soon.”

She sat back down on the couch and crossed her legs. She almost looked as if she were going to kick off her shoes and take a nap.

Tanner turned and fled.


	4. We Have People Everywhere, Am I Right?

It all happened so fast M was still trying to figure out how she had survived Mitchell pointing a gun straight at her and pulling the trigger.

She should have a hole in her chest. She looked down just to make sure she didn’t actually have one that she couldn’t feel. Her black and white suit was pristine…no sign of red anywhere. She felt no pain. 

As she ran through the maze of stone hallways, just on the verge of panic, she replayed the scene in her head.

At the time, she had been vaguely paying attention to White as he insulted her, MI6 and the CIA. She had almost been gleeful at the thought that White, and Quantum, had not only pulled the wool over her eyes, but had bested the CIA as well. She had his wallet in her hands and she was flipping through his credit cards, when she heard him respond to one of Bond’s questions.

“We have people everywhere, am I right?”

Why was he looking at Mitchell? She barely registered anything else before she saw Mitchell draw his gun and shoot the other operative standing to his right. Just as quickly Bond drew his gun but not before Mitchell pointed his gun at her and pulled the trigger.

Again, why was she not bleeding? She continued to ponder this question as she frantically looked for a place to hide. She mostly remembered turning away from the shot and then running to the back stairs, only hearing the commotion behind her. 

The IV pole. The IV pole that she had insisted White didn’t need, but Mitchell had suggested the medic hook up. To keep White alive and conscious and not let him fall into shock.

How ironic, she thought as she ducked into a cubby hole in the side of the hallway. 

And now, here she was, in a situation where White was just down the hallway…injured but still possibly dangerous…with no bodyguard, no agent, no gun. And while she was trained in self-defense, she was also 70 years old and in no position to fight off anyone, even a man with a bullet hole in his leg. 

She put her back against the wall and tried to calm her breathing. The edge of panic she had felt was subsiding and she was sliding back into ‘M’ mode, her brain working out how best to deal with the situation.

After a moment of calming her nerves and forcing herself to control her breathing, she listened for any evidence of movement back in the main chamber. She heard nothing.

She was certain that Bond had missed Mitchell, or just injured him if he had actually shot him, meaning Mitchell had run and Bond had chased after him. The other operative was more than likely dead, having taken a bullet straight in the heart. At that thought, she once again looked down at her chest, positive that she had previously missed a bullet hole and blood. Nothing.

While still listening, she continued her gaze down her body, wondering if she had been hit somewhere else and just didn’t realize it. Her suit was black so she ran her hands up and her arms, across her belly, and down her legs, looking for signs of blood that she wouldn’t be able to see on the black material. 

Nothing. 

An IV pole. A simple IV pole.

Then she heard voices. She listened carefully to see if it was Bond, returning to the chamber after chasing, and hopefully killing, Mitchell. 

No, it wasn’t Bond. There were three voices. Once she recognized: White. The other two she didn’t. 

“She ran down the hallway…that way,” M heard White say.

“Okay, you take care of him, I’ll go see if I can find her.”

M’s heart leapt at the words that someone was coming after her. She looked around frantically for a weapon or a way out. There was nothing. She wanted to smack herself for allowing herself to be put in such a position with no back-up plan. But then again, she hadn’t counted on Mitchell being a traitor.

Then it hit her exactly how she had been put in this situation: Mitchell had set it up. Had set everything up. The location, the lack of escape route, the entire situation. 

The rat bastard. Her personal bodyguard for so many years, interacting with her family and following her around, even on holidays. Part of her hoped Bond killed him. Part of her wanted Bond to bring him back to her so she could kill him.

Then she heard footsteps getting closer. M poked her head around, thankful that the cubby hole she was hiding in was around a corner and out of line of site from the chamber, looking for an escape route. She saw a door down the hallway.

She gambled and ran to the door, almost on her tip toes so whomever was chasing her wouldn’t hear. Just as she put her hand on the door she heard a man shout ‘there she is!’ and the footsteps get louder and harder.

The hunt was on. 

In the room, M tried to get her bearings. She didn’t even know where she was...again, she had relied on Mitchell to clear everything before she arrived and keep things clear while she was there. She no longer had a mental picture of the building they were in, no longer had an idea where ‘out’ was. Where freedom and safety were. 

The room was long, with windows along the side, some sort of chamber. At the end, another door. Judging by the level of the street noise she could hear, M figured that door led to the street. 

She ran towards it.

She heard the door she had come through bang open and when she turned to look, twisted her ankle and fell to the ground. 

She heard shouting then felt a bullet whiz past her head. She was now 0 for 2 with straight shots to her body. She knew her luck was going to run out very quickly. 

The pain in her ankle was growing. Had she broken it? 

The footsteps came closer to her. 

She crouched down, trying to be as small a target as possible, knowing her time on this earth was up.

A gunshot rang out above her head. She focused on her body to figure out where she had been hit. Then she heard a ‘thud’. 

The man chasing her was now lying on the floor, a round hole in the middle of his chest already spilling red onto his clean, white shirt.

“Bond…” she whimpered, petrified that it wasn’t him, but someone else who just wanted the thrill of killing the head of MI6 all to himself.

“Come on, M, let’s go.” 

A hand came into her peripheral vision from her right. With smooth black skin and a gold Bulova watch. She thought, for a moment, she could even hear it tick.

Not even looking up she took the hand and allowed the man to pull her to her feet.

“There’s a car waiting outside. Our guys our outside. White and the other man got away.”

“Thanks, Felix,” said M.


End file.
